Mr. Adler, if you are reading this, please join the Review.

I expect I will be accused of harrassing FT2 again, but the comments justifying the block were outrageous, and deserve comment.

1. FT2 claims Giano "Implied to a female user that she should be "ashamed of her sex" and told her "men don't like a woman with an opinion" which makes it sound terrible. But this is what Giano [as CDB] actually said in reply to Elonka:



His first point implies she shouldn't be ashamed of her sex (the article in question was about an early American feminist). The second remark was clearly ironical.

2. FT2 claims that the remark at the top of Giano's talk page "Just in case any of you were stupid enough..." is uncivil. But what Giano says is



which is followed by a link to a remark by SlimVirgin that there is a fundamental conflict of interest in the Ombudsman committee. How on earth is this uncivil.

3. FT2 links to further supposedly uncivil comments, as followsl







4. Giano blanked his talk page after being told 'to drop it' by two administrators. That is uncivil?

These are one of the most outrageous block reasons I have ever seen. The only remotely uncivil remark he made was this:



but that was two days ago.

Could you write more about this experience? I have never actually had a front row seat in the collapse of a social networking community, other than maybe Wikiabuse and Wikback. I would be interested in your perspective.

I may be missing something, but can anyone explain to me what Giano actually does to deserve this Cult Status?

Sure, he writes a few nice articles, but so did fellow sock-puppeteers Poetguy and SlimVirgin. And writing a decent article for WP isn't particularly taxing.

I just take a look at Giano's endless drama-fueled stunts and wonder why he hasn't been given the boot long ago? His relentless, hyperactive, jack-in-the-box rabble-rousing lacks any credibility to me.

This kind of thing is clearly bad for Wikipedia -- which is good for everyone else, of course. If Giano was doing this stuff as some kind of anti-Wikipedia activist, I'd be applauding him at every turn, but he and a whole load of followers seem to think these antics represent some kind of credible anti-corruption drive to improve the place.

When the red mist clears, Team Giano are generally found to be as indoctrinated, and as blind to the genuine problems of WP as the most hardline Wikipedo. Meaning that these interpersonal dramas actually obstruct reform by sapping time and energy.

That remark makes me think seriously of leaving WR. Perhaps I wouldn't be missed. Giano may not lack drama but he stands for all the maligned and abused and despised content contributors that are still there. And he sticks up for them too.

That was an appalling remark Kato. I had a very high opinion of you until I saw this.

Me too.



Mee too. He writes a few in his user space over several months, just to justify the hundreds of other edits dedicated to aggro and so on.

Giano is seen as, and to a large extent is, the leading defender of content-contributors against the parasitical mandarin class and their leadership. To what extent he contributes articles is almost irrelevant, but that he is a great writer is beyond the doubt of anyone that reads his articles. This is more than one can say for most of the puffed-up nobodies who support his blocks, who do absolutely nothing except chatter to each other, endow each other with glorifying positions and tell others what they should do.

That he's being constantly blocked though probably doesn't anger many of his supporters these days, as each one is a demonstration in impotence and stupidity that doesn't do anyone but the issuer harm. It's this latter thing that amazes me. The newbie admin blocking him for attention and patronage is one thing, but guys like DG and FT2 doing it astonishes me. I mean, there was no chance either of these blocks were going to stick.

Where is his focus on content contribution in the last year? This is claimed about him but the admins who are maligned for questioning him usually actually often do far more in main space over the whole last 12 months than him. Maybe he once was primarily a content contributor, but he hasn't been for more than months.

Like this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Palace

which he has been working on throughout the last three months. How can people on Wikipedia Review possibly be saying things like this? How many of you lot actually contribute to the project, instead of whining on like parasitic scroungers?

Most "uncivil".

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=253502537




it's the kinder, gentler, made, Wikimafioso. Just months ago it would have been "fuck off, you cunt".



That's because they all get erased and/or pretended to have never occurred.

What "good" blocks has Gerard ever made?

That one of Utah made WP the laughingstock of the web 2.0 press for a month.

from Deskana's WP CV. Which isn't going to do squat for him when he enters the real world next year after school and kiddie playtime on WP is over.


LOL! "Official"



i'm practically Jimbo. KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!



They always do.




Because that's the way Wikifacists stay in "official" power. By hiding things from WP that directly affect WP editors.



Because unlike WP's "rule" against democracy-style voting, couting how many edits you have is supposed to mean something. So I cross t's and dot i's as often and separately as possible. Someday I'm climb to the toppermost of the Slimmy TOP 40 edits list, to #1!

I also have a severe need to boost my wiki-ego, and let you know that on WP, I'm better than you. I'm a WP official. Lol.

Precisely, he's only worked on a few articles over the last many months.

Please, Peter. This is vintage Kato. Anyone who doesn't subscribe to old-school-WR's well-worn hard line approach--namely, that WP is a complete failure that needs to be wholly demolished--is part of the problem, or, at best, a distraction from those "real issues". You're either with WR, or you're with the terrorists. Choose a side.

Wikipediots like myself celebrate Giano's talent for casting sharply worded tomatoes on the faces of the feeble, misguided, self-important, scheming schoolmarms who currently run the assylum.

Giano can be smug, shrill and, at his worst, an attention glutton and bully (which is especially ironic, given his underdog pretensions), but we forgive--and perhaps even encourage--these foibles because his efforts to expose the incompetence/impotence of the Arbitration Committee and other key figures are so often right on the money.

Not all of his antics are effective or well reasoned, but he remains a worthy martyr for highly skilled content editors who been made to feel unwelcome by WP's absurd police system.

We also enjoy his writing style; his best articles are a joy to read, and his essays are hilarious.

Precisely - his Wodehousian sense of humour is very funny to Brits like myself.

Wikiwhistle I can't believe you are saying such things. The Winter Palace is a massive piece and required much research, some of it outside G's area of expertise. I am not sure I can forgive you for any of those remarks above, and I considered you a sort of friend here [storms out of the room in a huff].

We went from Peter Damian to Michael Damian. Love it. Where's Cricket to despair when we need her?

Can't speak for Kato, but I can speak for myself. As far as I'm concerned, Wikipedia *is* a complete failure, it just hasn't realised it yet. Despite some shining lights who do appear to be trying to actually make an encyclopaedia, of whom Giano is one, it simply cannot succeed in being anything more than a drama generator, an MMORPG, a playground for school bullies of the worst kind. It has much good content, but, unless there is a very major change in governance, that will inevitably be watered down, sanitised and vandalised out of existence as time goes on. It is futile to edit wikipedia when a ten-year-old admin can, and will, decide that it's in violation of either WP:NOR or WP:NPOV or - well - you get the WP:POINT.

Until something radical happens, Wikipedia can WP:FUCKOFFYOUCUNT as far as I'm concerned, and so can anyone still trying to edit there in any sort of non-subversive manner. The time for Giano-esque wordplay has been and gone. It's time for pitchforks and torches.

f.

Yes, I've noticed that kind of rational, real world perspective thing I do has just become so old round these parts, thanks to folks like yourself.

I don't recall writing anything of the sort you describe, and I find it interesting that you've taken to lobbing pot shots at myself lately on various threads - having seen off threats like Kohs Awbrey and Brandt.

I've seen this kind of thing before in cults - the attempts to discredit and wantonly mischaracterize any criticism, even if it is as reasonable and rational as mine, all to protect the hive by any means necessary.

Go Giano!!!!!!!!!!!! WOooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

Long ago, Giano came under Kelly Martin's thumb, back when she was one of the project's jack-booted thugs. What happened instead was that Giano, Geogre and Bishonen took Kelly down, giving hope to the idealistic masses that perhaps there was a glimmer of hope for the project; that people of encyclopedic merit could triumph over social climbing IRC whores and bullies, and that the English Wikipedia might start to actually value quality editing and editors.

There's been a chain of similar events ever since.

And then there's Giano's unbelievable spirit and sense of humor. (Hey Cedric, you could learn a thing or two from Giano).

Bear in mind that he was addressing Will Beback. Here's the context. Under the circumstances, I regard it as a simple statement of fact.

I read and absorb a lot of things you write PD, and have respect for that stuff. I also respect the insights of people like NYBrad, and Cla68 when they write things.

I just don't think Giano has anything very interesting to say about Wikipedia's governance, and find his antics to be a distracting circus. Unlike the contributions of the above.

For instance, in the questions to the candidates, there was some interesting stuff about WP's future. But this is utterly lost in the midst of this typically-tedious-lunatic non-drama about a guy faking another account, prancing around as Lady Whatever, and then performing some kind of foppish Performance Art piece surrounding his block. You might see that as dissent, where all I heard was "look at me, me, me".

Well said.

Yes. And as I said above, he also defends and shows great kindness to those content contributors who do not have his high profile.



I don't know what planet you are living on. But then you hold Awbrey in high regard.

Even our own Wikiwhistle joins the anti-Giano horde on-wiki.



But why did FT2 block? As I suggested above, he seems to have entirely misunderstood the point and the content of Giano's remarks. He saw the word 'stupid' (in fact Giano was referring to no one in particular) and thought 'incivility'.

Have you even looked at how long that article is? In addition to all the articles about specific rooms he made.

The suggestion that an obscure poster like myself has the influence to "see off threats like Kohs, Awbrey and Brandt" is flattering, but I'm not sure "threats" is the best choice of words here, since the only thing Awbrey threatened was the reasonable forum-reader's patience and did so with distressing regularity. I actually had very little interaction with any of them (though I may have teased Awbrey a few times for his unreadable threads).

By contrast, I always enjoyed reading what Kohs and Brandt had to say and found them to be engaging and intelligent, though Brandt's accusations can be outlandish at times.

Perhaps what you're saying is that my very insufferable presence (coupled with the swelling influx of my "romper room" colleagues) drove them off, but I very much doubt that's what made Kohs and Brandt leave.

Also, I should probably apologize for not clearly delineating your views from the shrinking down-with-WP mob that at one time seemed fashionable around here. Sometimes you all start to sound the same.

Many of us wikipediots agree with your positions on the "big" issues (BLP problems/flagged revisions/clueless, unqualified leadership) you regularly complain about, and agree that WP would be a better place were those concerns addressed. I certainly spend a lot more time thinking about them after discovering this forum and am more careful in my editing as a result.

I do, however, think you would win more converts with slightly more engaging, less contemptuous approach than that which you and Jon Awbrey seem to favor. Your distaste for the "personality" aspect of WP is noted (and noted and noted and noted and noted and noted), but a healthy(?) interest in wiki-personalities/drama (which drew most of us here in the first place) does not preclude a desire to improve the aspects of the encyclopedia we both wish to improve. So perhaps you should stop abusing your guests for expressing such an interest. Or don't. I think your repetition is kind of entertaining.

If I hurt your feelings, I'm sorry, but your preaching continually to a very tiny choir becomes tiresome. That's not how you win hearts and minds, and that should really be your goal.

True or not, Giano is also widely seen as the victim of persecution by the iron-fisted oligarchy. Giano is actually a very nice guy if you do not open with being a dick to him. Nobody believes he started his long-running conflict with the IRC backslappers, and every time they come after him it looks like opportunistic dickery.

If Giano is somehow a problem, it is lost in the sea of the problem that is those who hold a grudge against him. If they behaved, and Giano misbehaved - he would get in trouble. Until then - people love the underdog, and since those after him are being asses about it, he gets a pass when he returns the level of civility he gets.

As well he should. Arbitrary enforcement of vague and irrational policies is unfair and destructive.

Giano gets different consideration because of his contributions, but really it's more a case of Giano getting slightly less unfair treatment than others, who have simply been summarily banned without any hope of reprieve.

Not at all. I just recognized your drip-drip-drip efforts to further marginalize criticism of the actual model at this site, and downgrade independent voices in favor of what Giano himself calls:

"little more these days than a slightly risque, but far more interesting, version of ANI."

Here's some news. The Real World is tiresome. Far more tiresome than the WP:FANTASYFOOTBALLLEAGUE of a slightly risque WP:ANI. But that's the real world we live in, and no matter how deeply entrenched in this Second-Life garbage you are, it is the real world that matters in the end.


The thing is that this Arbitrary enforcement exists throughout the site and stems from ideas at the heart of WPs philosophy, so it makes no difference whether you, NewYorkBrad, King Solomon, Huey, Louis or Dewey are on the Arbitration committee.

Which is why targeting individuals on Arbcom in 2006, and different bunch in 2007, and then a different bunch again in 2008, etc etc, is so pointless and wasteful. This is merely a result of drama ascending to The Top as it does in all these things. Individual Arbitrators become scapegoats for a far deeper malaise.

It's not where you were born that counts, it's where you live, work, and have an influence. I suppose that view is the American in me.

If you'll allow me a side riff on this, I once thought the same, but have changed my mind. You see, it's not true that

It has much good content, but, unless there is a very major change in governance, that will inevitably be watered down, sanitised and vandalised out of existence as time goes on.

For the simple reason that vandalized stuff does NOT go "out of existence." It merely retires to the museum basement, until it can be used for restoration (or if you prefer, it never left the museum basement-- the vandalized Mona Lisa up there on the wall, is a copy). WP doesn't oversight those old best "stable" versions (whether they've been marked "stable" or not), and in any case, even if WP tried to kill them, most have been scraped by mirror sites that do NOT allow "anybody to edit" and thus vandalize. So WP, despite all the 3-steps-forward-2-back nonsense, is a rachett which creeps slowly forward. Most of us are pissed off at the slow RATE it improves, and the damage it does to BLP on the side, but we don't disagree that the content gets getting and more inclusive. A few people, like Kato of the "WP-delenda-est" repetitions. But the rest of us here on WR I think disagree.

Meanwhile, it's frustrating. WP with its present (non)governance is a Michelangelo Pietà with the head knocked off (thanks, Lazlo Toth-- you're no Don Novello). It's a gold inlaid Kuwaiti palace with Iraqi shit on the floor. As Mr. Spock once said about logic, it's a wreath of pretty flowers that smell bad.

So what to do? I've already taken an oath not to help WP with any of its fundamental problems until it does something about its "culture" of Goths. And I mean that in all senses of the word. And though I also work on individual science and history articles I'm interested in (I contribute more lasting content than just about anybody dramatizing on Jimbo's TALK page), I only revert vandalism on articles where it is interfering with my personal work. The rest of it I leave alone to the Huggle users who only have work because Jimbo and the community cannot allow Huggies for the un-potty-trained. The non-housetrained.

And I'm going to suggest something else, which I heard the other day and am happy to spread as a meme. I suggest that editors of content on WP, as a protest until sprotection (or its equivalent) arrives, refrain from reverting ANY IP-vandalism on their favorite weekend day. Simply pick your religious day of rest, and do no IP-vandal reversion on that day, letting it pile up like the garbage in a city sanitation engineer's strike. But not all the time. Just one day a weekend. I do not urge anybody to vandalize wikipedia; I suggest you merely refrain from cleaning up gratuitous IP-vandalism on the weekly day of IP-vandal-protest, and thus send a message to the others of the "community" at WP, that if they insist on letting "anybody" edit, then for this day, THEY get to clean up the shit from it.

Enjoy, you lackies!

(I think I'm going to re-post some of the above in its own thread)

Milton

Here is the content contribution in giano's last 300 edits-

he wrote a paragraph
he piped a link
he removed a date.

It is not surprising that people disenchanted with one cult leader will seek out another cult leader.

In other news, FT2 has launched an Arbitration case against SlimVirgin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req...:_re_SlimVirgin

Is this what he had in mind from the beginning? He didn't know who would overrule him, but was FT2 just testing things when he blocked Giano? I mean, did FT2 figure he'd get overruled, but knowing this, thought to create an opportunity to overcome Arbcom's impotency vis-a-vis Giano?

Or is this all just blow-to-blow reaction?

OK, this thread has gone on long enough without this being said:

There is more than one content contributor on Wikipedia who opposes IRC cliquishness and secrecy in general. Giano might be one, but SlimVirgin is another. Once again she has acted to increase the transparency and orderly governance of Wikipedia, and once again the silence here is deafening. Yeah, she's made mistakes in the past (betting on Mantanmoreland, for example), but I don't question her commitment to actually improving Wikipedia. On a lot of issues we would see eye-to-eye, and on this issue we do.

So I will be the first here to say: props to SlimVirgin for the unblock. Go, Slim, Go.


Privatemusings makes the response to the RFAR I would make:

Disagree, sorry Milton. Sure, the "good" versions sit in the basement, but they slowly, surely, get covered with layer and layer of guano. As one thing gets vandalised, and another gets fixed, there's not even any one "good" version any more, just a few slightly polished gems set in turds. To produce the hypothetical "good wikipedia" then means not simply pulling the "good" versions, but investigating every revision, every bit of relevant talk page discussion that was WP:DISMISSEDOUTOFHAND for every article - it means rewriting every damn thing in the project.

If there's no "good" article, no "good" version, then how can external sites automatically scrape those "good" versions? Even if there were "good" versions, how can an automated scrape ensure that only "good" versions get mirrored, and not the (subtly or not) vandalised versions?

Even without the appalling governance, the layers of playground infighting, Wikipedia is doomed to failure by its very methods of working. "The free encyclopaedia anyone can edit, but nobody can trust". 3 steps back, 2 steps forward.

f.

Sigh, yes. She said she liked Giano's sense of humor in doing the crone-puppet (anybody remember Drama Queen Wayland Flowers' Madame?). Who would even have guessed Slim had a sense of humor? She must now be on medical marijuana, up there in Kanuckistan.

Oh, well, whatever makes you a better person I'm all for.

300 edits takes us back to 16 November, when all this nonsense started. He hasn't worked on anything in the last week.

Go before that, and you see all the work he has done. Note also, that when he got Winter Palace into a reasonable state, he asked a number of other people to copyedit it.

I CANNOT BELIEVE you are saying these horrible things. Really.



I have always supported SV 100%, as everyone here knows. She has many faults, but she is fundamentally on the side of content contributors.

And on the other subject, the incredible attack made by 'Wikiwhistle' on one of the great content contributors to the project. As I pointed out, the past 300 edits were non-productive, because of the block and the drama. But the 300 edits before that

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...target=Giano+II

are very productive. That was a bit of selective diff'ing worthy of FT2 himself.

And in the 'last three months' he has also created this fine article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&action=history

Now I'm off to see what 'Sticky Parkin' has created in article space in that time.

[edit] Just as I thought: f--- all

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...t=Sticky+Parkin

Kato is right, and Pumpkin Muffins is talking crap as usual.

I like Giano, he's witty, literate and bright - which is a fairly unusual combination. His content contributions are, it goes without saying, impressive. However, I've simply never understood his campaign, it's not so much I disagree with the presuppositions (although I guess I do) it's rather that his issues always seemed to me rather small and pathetic for someone with such evident talent.

His "content contributors vs ruling admins" war is quite bogus. Especially when one realises that almost all the arbitration committee have fairly impressive content resumes themselves. Certainly the arbs have contributed far more than many of the Giano groupies (with some honourable exceptions).

And what are his issues? Outrage that he gets blocked for incivility? Shrug. Petty powergames with arbcom? Obsession about whether a bunch of people are talking about him in IRC? Who cares? It's all just wikipower politics with a load of cabal paranoia and a practice of assuming that your opponent is motivated by a strong desire to eat babies. Giano trolls an election with a sock, Gerard trolls Giano with a block, Giano takes a hissy fit, Giano calls Beback a troll, Giano gets blocked again, Slim virgin settles a score. Tune in next week for the next exciting episode of Wiki-soap. It's all myopic sound and fury signifying precisely nothing.

The real issues: the potential (and reality) of harm being done to people's real lives, libels, character assassinations, and lack of responsibility for actions that can adversely affect the health, life, occupation and well-being of innocent third parties seem to pass Giano and co right by.

Newsflash: what "{{admin:Bob209}}" did, or did not do, to [[User:!!]], and whether he did it via IRC or e-mailed some abusive pall, is just not up there with global warming, world poverty, and some poor person who finds that themselves blocked whilst trying to remove libels from their biography that was created by a disgruntled and slanderous ex-employee. Let's get a sense of proportion.

Kato and I would, of course, differ on whether wikipedia needs killing or curing - but I think we would agree on what the real issues are, and what is a bunch of crap of interest only to those hooked on wikidrama.

And nobody who plays football and tennis at age three should be attacked for anything!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/67/SV_age_3.jpg

Seriously, though, I do agree here. It's a woods for the trees situation - Slim, ironically, does share similar values in relation to Wikipedia as many here.

Well the first two names that come to mind are FT2 and NYB. FT2 has contributed nothing but drivel in mainspace since he arrived, most of which requires deletion. NYB I just checked and his 500 mainspace edits takes us back to 2007, most of which are minor corrections.

Next, Doc Glasgow.

Not that it really matters, but I've looked into this before, check their userpages.

Wasn't he high at the time? (I, Mudd)

Interesting

See my comment today in the "What percentage of Wikipedia is drama?" thread? For the record, I've created about 75 pages, albeit not recently. (Note also that creating a page can be one edit and voting on an arbitration case like Piotrus 2 can be 50 edits, so merely looking at a user's edit history can be misleading.)

As an actor, or as the character? As the character, no. That shit-eating grin you remember was probably from This Side of Paradise. Though it seemed that about every other episode they had to devise a new way for Spock (and everybody else) to become emotional.

I think David Carradine was on LSD in every single episode of Kung Fu, though. He's since claimed, that, anyway.

OK, maybe he was just acting goofy to confuse the 'bots... kinda like some vandals WP gets.



Would not surprise me, that show was trippy even if played straight.

You do not know what you are talking about. I repeat: FT2 has contributed nothing but piffle and nonsense in mainspace, most of which badly needs deleting (as you know, I was once blocked for nominating one of his articles in AfD - it was deleted, for all that).

NYB as far back as I can see has a contribution profile that is very distinctive of minor changes. You can tell a content contributor always by a series of contributions to the same article.

OK?

What exactly did I say that was crap? I was there Doc. I remember when Jimbo started promoting incompetent nincompoops (Kelly Martin, Essjay and his one article that he wrote) to the very highest positions of power in the English Wikipedia. I was there when Danny created the secrete #admins star chamber unannounced, with only 'certain' admins invited. Looking back, I can say much of the content I created five years ago is still there and still the very best on the web. I still create content to this day, meanwhile, Doc, you seem to have washed out.

So go ahead and call my opinions crap without justifying the charge with thought or reason or facts, and I'll judge you by that.


You're a fucking moron, doc. Some of the arbitrators Giano had the most trouble with never created any significant content, or have long since given up doing so; Fred B., Jdforrester (goes months at a time without creating anything), FT2, UC, Kelly Martin, JPgorden

Responded to above: I've created about 75 pages, albeit not recently (and I need to start again).

Examples?

Look at the other arbs userpages, and you'll see differently. NYB is an exception, and FT2's contributions? - Well, methinks you are grinding an axe - but even so. Why don't you look at the others with an open mind.